Health by Sue Dunlevy Premium Content Subscriber only Exclusive: People who experience side effects from the COVID-19 jab do not necessarily gain greater protection from the virus, nor are they more susceptible to it, experts said. Almost half the Australians who've had their vaccine have reported adverse reactions - and a third felt like they had the flu. But, while it seemed logical, there was as yet no clinical evidence linking a person's severe side effects to the jab to them getting a potentially harsher version of COVID-19. "Just because you got a severe reaction to the vaccine doesn't mean you'd get a severe reaction if you got the infection, although it might seem there's some logic in taking them to be related," University NSW virologist Professor Bill Rawlinson told News Corp.